• Our Centennial exhibit comes to Lindsay Wildlife

    ByGGBA

    The traveling exhibit celebrating our 100th anniversary is now on display at Lindsay Wildlife Experience in Walnut Creek, through February 2018.

    Lindsay Wildlife Experience is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays. It’s located at 1931 First Avenue in Walnut Creek. For directions, parking, and other visitor information, see https://lindsaywildlife.org/hours-prices-directions/.
    Centennial exhibit at the Presidio / Photo by Billy Douglas

    Lindsay Wildlife Experience is the final stop for our Centennial exhibit during 2017.ggas_centenniallogo_cmyk_fnl

    Other venues included:

    State of California Building Atrium.
    January 3-30, 2017

    Tilden Regional Park Environmental Education Center
    February 1 – March 31, 2017

    Oakland City Hall & Dalziel Building
    May 24 – July 7, 2017

    Tides Thoreau Center at the Presidio
    July 10 – September 29, 2017

    Lindsay Wildlife Experience
    October 3, 2017 – February 28, 2018

    Coyote Hills Regional Park Visitor Center
    July 18, 2018 – 

     

    Viewing the Centennial exhibit in San Francisco Viewing part of the Centennial exhibit in Berkeley

     

    Special Centennial issue of The Gull

    We also have other Centennial-related events planned for 2017, including monthly guest speakers on species and topics related to our history and field trips to parks that we have helped protect or restore. Click here to download the special Centennial issue of our Gull newsletter, which tells the fascinating story of our first 100 years.

    Our overall goal for the year is to strengthen Golden Gate Bird Alliance so that we can be an even more effective advocate for Bay Area birds and wildlife in the coming century. We are proud of our achievements — from stopping oil dumping off the Farallon Islands in the 1920s to protecting Alameda’s endangered Least Tern nesting colony in the 2000s — and we hope to share them with with our existing members as well as thousands of people who are new to Golden Gate Bird Alliance.

    You can help! How?

    • Bring your friends to the exhibit or to other GGBA events during 2017.
    • Recruit a new member for GGBA. Help us grow! Every current member who gets a friend to join GGBA for the first time will receive a beautiful enamel pin with our Centennial logo… one for you and one for your friend! Have your friend sign up at goldengatebirdalliance.org/bring100 to take advantage of the Centennial pin offer.
    • Volunteer to help with the exhibit, a Centennial reception, or other GGBA outreach activities such as staffing an information table at a community event or wildlife festival.
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    Winter 2017 Gull is available

    ByGGBA

    Special Centennial issue of The Gull

    The new edition of The Gull newsletter for Winter 2017 is now available — a special 20-page issue celebrating the Centennial of our founding in 1917!

    Read it for stories and images from 100 years of protecting Bay Area birds. Learn about our successful campaigns to prevent oil spills, create Audubon Canyon Ranch, and preserve Mono Lake, and meet past GGBA heroes such as Elsie Roemer, Paul Covel, and Junea Kelly.

    Also get the scoop on our traveling Centennial museum exhibit, which will be on display at five public venues throughout 2017! We hope you’ll celebrate this landmark year with us at the exhibit or at one of our other events throughout the year.

    Of course this issue of The Gull also includes GGBA news updates and the calendar for our Speaker Series in January, February and March!

    Click here to read it: TheGull_Winter2017.

    P.S. If you’re a GGBA member who gets the Gull online by email but would like a print copy of this special edition, contact our office at ggas@goldengatebirdalliance.org. We’ll be happy to mail you one.

     

     …

  • New video! Kids promote a clean and healthy Bay

    ByGGBA

    We’re delighted to share our new video, Doing Our Part: Kids and a Healthy Bay.

    This 17-minute video features young conservation leaders from Golden Gate Bird Alliance sharing some of their favorite places and creatures along the San Francisco Bay shoreline, and their ideas for how we can all keep the Bay’s habitats clean and healthy.

    Attention educators: This is a great resource to include in a curriculum on San Francisco Bay wildlife and habitats, local ecology and watersheds, and clean water.

    Consider pairing the video with some time in the field, spotting Bay wildlife and helping restore the shoreline! Participants of all ages are welcome at our ongoing volunteer habitat restoration events. See goldengatebirdalliance.org/volunteer for an upcoming restoration event and date convenient to you.

    Many thanks to the Alameda County Clean Water Program for funding this video.…

  • Become a volunteer docent!

    ByGGBA

    Do you love wildlife? Do you love Bay Area nature? Share your passion with others as a volunteer docent with Golden Gate Bird Alliance. We’re seeking volunteers to be Burrowing Owl docents and Birding the Bay Trail docents, and will hold annual trainings for each of these roles in September.

    Birding the Bay Trail Docents:

    Docents help people spot birds along the Bay Trail

    Share the birds along the Bay Trail with residents and visitors. You do NOT need to be an expert birder — just able to identify one or two common shorebirds or ducks.

    Teams of two docents go out to pre-selected sites along the beautiful Bay Trail in Richmond and share spotting scope views of the various ducks and shorebirds that make the Bay Area their winter home each year.  Training and materials are provided.  Volunteers are asked to spend two hours once or twice a month from October through March.  This year’s training is on Thursday, September 28, from  6 to 8 p.m.  at the Golden Gate Bird Alliance office in Berkeley.  If you’re interested in attending the training, please RSVP to Noreen Weeden at 510-301-0570 or volunteer@goldengatebirdalliance.org.

    Burrowing Owl Docents 

    Burrowing Owl in November 2014 by Miya Lucas

    Help us continue a tradition of public education and protection for our local Burrowing Owls, when they return to Cesar Chavez Park in Berkeley for the winter. Experience the joy as people see their first owl through a spotting scope or binoculars.

     This fall the Golden Gate Bird Alliance will be training additional docents to talk with the public about this locally endangered species and to help document information about these owls. Volunteers should be able to spend one to two hours per visit, at least two times a month, from October through March.

    Training will take place on Saturday, September 23, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Shorebird Nature Center in Berkeley. Interested? RSVP to Noreen Weeden at 510-301-0570 orvolunteer@goldengateaudubon.org.

    …

  • Osprey nest cam news

    ByGGBA

    Thank you to everyone who has been following our Osprey nest cam on the Richmond shoreline! We had sad news on Saturday, July 9. Whirley, the older chick, was not able to survive the injuries sustained before s/he was fished out of the Bay last week.  We are reprinting excerpts from WildCare’s letter to the Osprey cam community below.

    Meanwhile, Rivet — Whirley’s younger and more cautious sibling — has started taking short flights with lots of parental supervision and is doing well. If you don’t see Rivet or the parent Ospreys on the cam for a few minutes, don’t worry! They are probably flying, perching, or resting nearby. Check the “Around the nest” camera — one or more of the family is often perched on the crane’s beams near the nest.

    Thank you so much to everyone who tried to help Whirley — WildCare, of course, but also the Dutra barge crew who fished the bird out of the Bay, our Osprey volunteers, and all the well wishers whose hearts were with Whirley. It is a rare privilege to have such an intimate view of a family of wild creatures, but with that privilege comes all the risk and pain of a wild life.

    At Golden Gate Bird Alliance, we are committed to giving Bay Area wildlife the best possible shot at long, healthy lives and survival as species. Ospreys and other birds will always face natural threats such as diving accidents and predators, but we can minimize the risks added by humans such as trash, pollution, building collisions, and destruction of habitat.

    Want to help make the Bay Area a better habitat for Rivet and other wild birds? Come to one of our habitat restoration events. Join one of our conservation committees. Or tell your friends about simple steps such as recycling their fishing line and properly disposing of trash and household chemicals.

    Letter from WildCare

    Dear friends:

    It is with a heavy heart that we share with you the news that Whirley did not make it. The CT scan confirmed the multiple fractures that we had feared on x-rays and also clearly revealed even more structural and muscular damage beyond those. The severities of her injuries are consistent with a high velocity impact which could’ve been with a structure of some kind but due to the absence of external wounds, it is also a fair hypothesis that these were sustained from a water impact during a fishing attempt.…

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